Lithograph. 30,5 x 41,4 cm (image); 39,5 x 50,5 cm (sheet)
Delteil 289; Harris 286/II


Hôtel Drouot, Paris, sale June 18,1952, lot 99.4
One of the rare great masterpieces in Goya’s oeuvre and at the same time one of the early highlights in lithographic art.
Sketchy in its graphic texture liberating the stroke from its representational designation and vibrating in the flickering light-and-dark-effects, the composition has immensely picturesque, even ”proto-impressionist” qualities.
Concerning the >Bulls of Bordeaux<, Baudelaire thought of gigantic paintings in miniature.
In fact, according to eyewitnesses, it is told that Goya put the lithographic stones for the >Bulls of Bordeaux< like canvases on an easel and worked with them like a painter, checking the effect of the composition from the distance over and over again.
Magnificent impression with an overwhelming richness of different tones of black.
The impression especially mentioned by Lugt within the collection of H.J. Thomas.
Around 1786 the lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder in Munich. Goya experimented with the new technique for the first time in 1819, after it was introduced to Spain. After having moved to Bordeaux, Goya made the acquaintance of the head of the lithographic institution, Gaulon, in 1825. With his help he completes his technique and in the same year the series >Bulls of Bordeaux<, actually containing 5 plates, was executed.
Gaulon printed an edition of each 100 impressions from four illustrations. (The fifth plate exists exclusively as a trial proof of only one copy and, according to Harris, can be regarded as a first attempt for the series.)